


People Lie All the Time

by ashesinyourhair



Series: SPN AU Fragments [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alias AU, Espionage, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:04:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1609415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesinyourhair/pseuds/ashesinyourhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alias AU fragment. Dean finds out that he's been working not for the CIA, but for an international criminal organization, which no longer trusts him and wants him dead. (Might be expanded eventually; see notes instead of subscribing, though.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	People Lie All the Time

“You look like you could use another drink.”

Dean barely glances at the brunette who’s just slid onto the barstool next to his. “Not looking for company,” he says. Her hair reminds him of Lisa’s, but she’s not Lisa, and he’s just far enough into the bottle to take that personally. He signals the bartender for a refill. Besides, if he’s gonna get shitfaced, it should be on the Agency’s dime. Of all the people who owe him a drink…

“That’s a fancy bottle for a man hurrying toward a blackout,” the brunette says as he downs half the glass in one go. He lets it come down hard on the bartop, and she flinches back, just barely.

“Not looking for therapy, either,” he says. His words are going soft around the edges. It’s good whiskey. At this rate, he’s not gonna get to waste as much of the government’s money as he’d planned, but soon he’s not gonna give a damn, either.

The brunette doesn’t try again, and Dean works through the second half of his drink in blessed silence, taking his time, letting the alcohol do its thing on the parts of his brain that keep him awake nights, the parts that are too loud and too harsh, sharp edges against raw nerve endings. He feels it all going muffled, the lights and sounds of the bar slipping behind a gauzy veil. He feels the tightness in his chest—that sensation like a snake coiled around his heart that’s been there these past few months—slowly loosening and slipping away. He reaches for the glass again, misses; his hand goes right through where he thought it was. He blinks.

“’Nother round?” a voice asks, and Dean’s eyes take their time sliding up from the glass to connect with the source.

“No thanks,” Dean hears himself say. “Hey, where’dya say Benny is? He hates missin’ Saturdays.”

“Family emergency,” the bartender says. Dean nods, slow. Right. Family.

Thing is, Benny doesn’t have any family.

Dean cuts his eyes over toward the brunette. She’s fiddling with her phone, not paying him any attention. He digs for his wallet, fumbles it open, and manages to pull out a few bills that he hopes will cover his tab. He stands to go.

Next thing he knows, the floor’s where the wall was, and there are hands hauling him up by his elbows. He feels for the edge of the bar and shifts all his weight towards it, gulps air that tastes like it could get him drunk as easy as the whiskey did. The bartender’s saying something.

“—cab?”

“I’m good,” Dean says, in the face of all evidence. “I’ll just… I’m walkin’.”

“Not too well, buddy.” The bartender’s already dialing. “Get some fresh air, cab’ll be here in a minute.” He nods to someone, and Dean follows his gaze to the brunette, whose arm slips around his shoulders.

“Come on, honey,” she says. “I’ll keep you company.”

Dean scrutinizes her, best he can. He should’ve been able to tell. Not that it matters a whole lot at this point. What matters is they’re in a bar full of civilians. Whatever’s about to happen, best that it happens outside. Dean obliges her and lets himself be led out the door.

He wouldn’t make it far if he tried to take off right now. Whatever was in the whiskey went straight to his nerves, and it’s all he can do to get his muscles contracting in the right order to make his legs move. If he has a few minutes, he can learn to work around the roadblocks the drug’s put up in his system. So he drags his feet but lets the woman lead him into a side alley and prop him against the wall, pretends not to watch when she pulls out her phone again. She sends a short message, then slips it back into her pocket.

“Wouldn’t’ve pegged you for such a lightweight,” the woman says. “I was really hoping you had another couple rounds in you.”

“You might be surprised,” he says. He wonders what he’s got now—two minutes, ninety seconds? He scans the alleyway. It’s open at both ends; the woman’s between him and one of them, so he figures they’ll come from the other direction, probably won’t bother flanking since he’s drugged, just overpower him and get away quick. He pushes himself away from the wall. It’s like walking with your feet asleep, but it’ll have to be enough.

“Hey, you should take it easy,” the woman says as he approaches her. She backs away—then her fist flies out and connects with his jaw. It sends him sprawling, and she’s coming again before he can haul his weight up, so he kicks out and connects with her knee. She stumbles, regains her balance, reaches around toward her back. Dean doesn’t wait to see for what; he’s managed to get up on one knee, enough to pitch himself forward and tackle her legs out from under her. She falls over his back, her gun skids across the pavement in front of him, and from the end of the alley behind him comes the squeal of tires. He lurches forward to close his hand on the gun as the woman scrambles to her feet. The world spins around him as he turns, and he draws on her, his vision swimming.

“Dean!”

The voice cuts through the fog in his head like nothing else. “Sammy?” He looks over his shoulder.

“Look out!”

He turns back just as a foot connects with his groin, doubles over. The woman claws the gun from his grasp, and he’s staring down the barrel by the time his knees hit the pavement. He’d like to do this with his eyes open, but he doesn’t have it in him anymore.

He hears the gunshot. It takes him a moment to realize there’s something wrong there, and to wrench his eyelids open and see the woman slumping to the ground in front of him. There are footsteps running up behind him, and then hands hauling him to his feet, and Sam’s voice.

“Sammy? What the hell…”

“We gotta go,” Sam says, pulling Dean’s arm across his shoulders and lifting his dead weight. “Move your feet.”

Dean does, best he can, and Sam half-drags, half-carries him to the end of the alley and stuffs him into the passenger seat. Dean slumps against the door, forehead on the cool glass, as Sam gets in and the car peels out.

The city blurs past his window, and Dean groans and shuts his eyes.

“Take this,” Sam says, and jabs him in the shoulder when he doesn’t react. Dean unfolds, looks around, and his hand closes on a plastic vial. “It’ll counteract the drug.”

“Why do you…”

“Just take it!”

“Okay, fine!” Dean fumbles the cap off and pours it into his mouth. It’s ice cold, and he feels it slide all the way down his throat to his belly.

“There’s gotta be more, but I don’t think they’re following us,” Sam says. He hasn’t slowed down. Dean manages to get his seatbelt around him and to sit up, though his head throbs in protest.

Sam finally does dial back his speed as they get back into the middle of things, matching the flow of traffic. By that time Dean’s pretty sure he’s feeling the drug’s effects wearing off, mostly because he no longer wants to vomit whenever he opens his eyes. He looks over at Sam. He could just be a guy late for a date, checking the rearview and slipping in and out of traffic, hurried but not panicked. Dean can’t pick one question from the dozens jockeying for position inside his head. So he just says, “Thanks, Sammy.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Sam says.

He drives them around for another few minutes, making loops around blocks and changing lanes to be sure there’s no one on their tail. They pull up in a loading dock behind an old warehouse, and Sam stops the car and kills the engine.

“Okay, what the hell just happened?” Dean asks. “I mean, what were you even doing there?”

“Saving your life,” Sam says, quietly.

“How the hell did you know—”

“Dean…” Sam sighs. “Look. You’re not gonna like any of what I’m about to say, but just let me say it. ’Cause in about two minutes, a car’s gonna pull up over there, and you have to get in it.”

“Sam, what the—”

“Just… listen okay?” Sam glances around, but more like he doesn’t want to look Dean in the eyes than anything else. “How much do you know about SD-6?”

Dean feels the blood drain from his face. It’s about the last name he ever wanted to hear come out of his little brother’s mouth. “What are you talking about?” he asks, but there’s a waver in his voice.

“Don’t do that,” Sam says. “We don’t have time. Do you know who you’re working for?”

“The—the government,” Dean says. “The CIA.”

“Wrong. SD-6 isn’t CIA.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a cell,” Sam says, “of an international crime syndicate unconnected to any government. It’s Alliance.”

“Alliance. The Alliance? That’s insane.”

“It’s true.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“Because I work for them, too.”

Dean’s brain screeches to a halt. He stares at Sam, waits like he’s expecting him to bust out laughing and say he got Dean good and you should’ve seen your face. “Sam, you’re a translator.”

“And you’re a systems tech,” Sam says. “And we both work for the bad guys.”

Dean shakes his head. “How… How is that possible?”

“They lied to us. They lied to everybody.” Sam presses the button to illuminate the dashboard clock.

“So nobody knows?” Dean’s mind scans the faces of his coworkers. “Charlie, Kevin, they’re all in the dark, too?”

“Everybody below a certain clearance level, at least. Zachariah knows, and everyone above him, obviously; but I don’t know for sure who else.”

“Do they know you know?” It occurs to Dean that he might not be the only one they were gunning for tonight.

“No,” Sam says, just as another car pulls up across the lot and dims its headlights. He speaks in a rush. “About a year ago, I was analyzing reports from an overseas agent and ran across something that didn’t make sense. Zachariah said it was a mistake and the source had been burned, but something about it kept nagging at me. So I started digging. Long story short, it wasn’t the only thing that didn’t make sense. Took me about six months to put it all together, but once I did…”

“And you’re sure?” Dean asks.

“Positive.”

“How?”

“It’s…” Sam glances over at the car. “Look, I can’t go into the whole thing. You just gotta trust me.”

“I don’t trust anybody right now,” Dean says. “This… this is…”

“I get that you’re angry,” Sam says, “but—”

“Of course I’m angry, Sam!” Dean’s voice rings off the windows in the closed space. “You’re telling me I’m working for the fucking Alliance, that everything I fucking know is a lie. I got Lisa killed for a lie.”

Sam bows his head, lowers his voice. “Why’d you tell her?” he asks.

“Because I loved her,” Dean says, and it comes out dead.

“Dean, I’m sorry.”

“Did you know about it?” he asks. He’s not sure he wants the answer.

“No. There was a briefing, after… I wish I could’ve…” He gives up, shakes his head.

The other car is still idling across the lot, exhaust making clouds in the cold night air. “So this is it,” Dean says. “I get in that car, hightail it to Switzerland or where the fuck ever, and you go back to playing Spy vs. Spy?”

“I don’t really have a choice, Dean.”

Dean laughs, humorlessly. “How the hell do you do this?” he asks. “You’re telling me that you’ve known for, what, six months or more that you’re working for the enemy, and every day you go home to your apple-pie life and pretend everything’s okay?” Sam flinches but doesn’t respond. “You’re getting married, Sam. Does Jess know? How can you just lie to her face every damn day?”

Sam looks him dead in the eye. “Because I love her,” he says. And then he looks away, nods towards the other car. “Go. They’re not gonna wait much longer.”

Dean doesn’t move. He stares at Sam, whose eyes flick almost imperceptibly towards him but don’t meet his again. He’s got his head down like a scolded puppy, like Dean has every right to be pissed off at him even if Sam did just save his life. And he’s gonna let him drive off and get on a plane and never see him again, and carry on fighting alone, because if the tables were turned he knows Dean would do the same thing. And what would Sam do?

“Start the car,” Dean says.

Sam looks at him. “Dean—”

“Start the car, Sam,” he says. “Thanks but no thanks. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Dean, they’re going to kill you,” Sam says. “Do you get that? The only reason they didn’t kill you in that alley was so they could work you over first. Zachariah doesn’t trust you, all your aliases are dead and your contacts are burned, and he’s got thugs waiting to grab you within thirty seconds of your face popping up on any security camera in the city. You’ve got one ticket out of here, and it’s waiting in that car.”

Dean looks across the lot. As if on cue, the car’s headlights come up, and it pulls back out. Sam sighs as the taillights disappear down the alley.

“I’m not running, Sammy,” Dean says. “SD-6—the Alliance, whatever—they killed Lisa, okay? They’ve killed a lot of people. I killed a lot of people. I can’t make that right. But what I can do is make sure every one of those sons of bitches goes down.” Sam opens his mouth, but Dean presses on. “I’m not gonna ask you,” he says. “You’ve got a family. You do what you have to do to keep them safe. But this is what I’ve gotta do.”

Sam nods, not looking at him. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”

Dean claps him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Sammy,” he says, and reaches for the door handle.

“Dean—” Sam starts, but Dean gets out of the car, shuts the door. The window rolls down.

“Go home, Sam,” Dean says. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

Sam looks like he wants to say something. He doesn’t, shifts the car into gear and squeals out of the lot. Dean watches him go. Then he digs in his pockets, pulls out his wallet and his phone and his keys, and thinks. He looks up at the sky. He starts to come up with a plan.

**Author's Note:**

> [Crossposted to tumblr.](http://asheswrites.tumblr.com/post/85625682619/people-lie-all-the-time)
> 
> This was essentially the scene from the _Alias_ pilot where Sydney's dad saves her from being killed and she finds out they both work for SD-6. You should watch that episode if you haven't seen it, because it's one of my favorite pilots ever. Title is from the _Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_ soundtrack.
> 
> This fic is a fragment that could eventually become a longer work. If you're interested in being notified if it does, rather than subscribing (since I wouldn't be adding the rest to this post anyway), message me here or on my [tumblr (asheswrites)](http://asheswrites.tumblr.com/ask), or track my tumblr tag for this fic, [#aw alias au](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/aw-alias-au). Thanks for reading!


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